Throughout the constant shifts that our city governments have
undergone one may, however, discern three general plans of
government.

The first was the centering of power in the city council, whether
composed of two chambers--a board of aldermen and a common
council--as in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago, or of one
council, as in many lesser cities. It soon became apparent that a
large body, whose chief function is legislation, is utterly unfit
to look after administrative details. Such a body, in order to do
business, must act through committees. Responsibility is
scattered. Favoritism is possible in letting contracts, in making
appointments, in depositing city funds, in making public
improvements, in purchasing supplies and real estate, and in a
thousand other ways. So, by controlling the appointment of
committees, a shrewd manipulator could virtually control all the
municipal activities and make himself overlord of the city.

The second plan of government attempted to make the mayor the
controlling force. It reduced the council to a legislative body
and exalted the mayor into a real executive with power to appoint
and to remove heads of departments, thereby making him
responsible for the city administration. Brooklyn under Mayor
Seth Low was an encouraging example of this type of government.
But the type was rarely found in a pure form. The politician
succeeded either in electing a subservient mayor or in curtailing
the mayor's authority by having the heads of departments elected
or appointed by the council or made subject to the approval of
the council. If the council held the key to the city treasury,
the boss reigned, for councilmen from properly gerrymandered